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Solid Snake
Early Metal Gear Solid Games Metal Gear, initially released in 1987 on the MSX2 home computer and later ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, introduces Solid Snake, the rookie recruit of the elite special-forces unit FOXHOUND. Snake is sent by team leader Big Boss into the rogue nation Outer Heaven to rescue his missing teammate Gray Fox and discover who or what the "METAL GEAR" mentioned in Gray Fox's last transmission is. After rescuing a member of the resistance, Snake discovers that he has been set up; the leader of Outer Heaven is actually Big Boss, who intends to use Metal Gear—an experimental, nuclear-armed mecha—to establish Outer Heaven as a nuclear power. After destroying the Metal Gear itself, he then confronts Big Boss and defeats him. Much as Metal Gear began as a pastiche of action movies of the time, Solid Snake began as a pastiche of contemporary action movie heroes. For example, on the cover artwork of the original Metal Gear, he resembles Michael Biehn in The Terminator, the in-game portrait of Snake in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake resembles Michael Madsen, and Mel Gibson in the game's opening sequence. Solid Snake was even named after another fictional special forces operative: Snake Plissken, Kurt Russell's character in Escape from New York.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_snake#cite_note-Kent-6Kojima later described Snake's role in the original Metal Gear as the "player's presence", contrasting the defined personality Solid Snake acquired in Metal Gear Solid. The NES port of Metal Gear was an unexpected million-seller in North America. Konami commissioned the production of an NES sequel for the North American market titled Snake's Revenge, which was developed without the involvement of the first game's director, Hideo Kojima. Given the North American success of his game and its sequel, Kojima went on to develop his own sequel to Metal Gear. This sequel, titled Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and initially released only in Japan for the MSX2, follows after the original Metal Gear rather than Snake's Revenge; indeed, all later games ignore the events of Snake's Revenge. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake sees Solid Snake once again called up to infiltrate a heavily-fortified enemy base, this time in Zanzibarland. Zanzibarland has aggravated an international oil crisis and declared themselves a nuclear power by kidnapping Dr. Kio Marv, the creator of a bio-engineered algae that produces an oil substitute, and Dr. Pettrovich Madnar, the developer of the original Metal Gear. Snake infiltrates the base and discovers that Pettrovich and his former comrade Gray Fox have defected to Zanzibar Land, and that Zanzibar Land is led by none other than Big Boss. Snake destroys their new Metal Gear D, confronts and defeats Gray Fox, in a hand-to-hand fight in a minefield, and defeats Big Boss by setting him ablaze with a makeshift flamethrower. Metal Gear Solid games Following the release of Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, Solid Snake did not appear in another game until 1998 (a full eight years later), when he re-emerged as the protagonist of the PlayStation game Metal Gear Solid. This game, which debuted at the 1997 Electronic Entertainment Expo to great fanfare, soon became an international hit and garnered critical acclaim worldwide. Metal Gear Solid sees Solid Snake pulled out of retirement by Colonel Campbell to deal with FOXHOUND. Under the leadership of Liquid Snake, FOXHOUND has gone rogue, seizing Shadow Moses Island, an isolated American nuclear weapons disposal facility. Snake infiltrates the base and meets up with Meryl Silverburgh, a rookie soldier, and Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, the designer of Metal Gear REX. Snake defeats each member of FOXHOUND one by one, destroys Metal Gear REX, and confronts Liquid. Liquid reveals that he and Solid are twin brothers artificially conceived from Big Boss' genes during a government project designed to create the perfect soldier titled "Les Enfants Terribles", in which one brother was genetically modified to be superior over the other. Liquid harbors a strong resentment towards Snake since his brother was given their father's "dominant genes" and Liquid was cast aside. After a grueling series of battles, Liquid dies from the Fox-Die virus that was previously implanted into Snake. In the end, it is revealed that Liquid got most of the "soldier genes", not Snake. In addition to expanding Solid Snake's backstory, as the first Metal Gear game to feature voice acting Metal Gear Solid established his characteristic voice and appearance.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_snake#cite_note-retroactive-13Yoji Shinkawa's Solid Snake design, characterized by his navy blue bandanna and "sneaking suit", would serve as the template for all future incarnations of Snake in later Metal Gear games. According to Shinkawa, Snake's physique in Metal Gear Solid was based on that of action star Jean-Claude Van Damme, while his facial appearance in the same game was inspired by actor Christopher Walken. Shinkawa described his rendition of Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid as a "middle ground" between the younger Snake who graced the cover artwork of the first Metal Gear and the middle-aged Snake from the MSX2 version of Metal Gear 2. ''Kojima introduced the cloning origins of Solid Snake to ''Metal Gear Solid in order to provide Solid Snake with an adversary who would be his equal, since the story, being a continuation to the original MSX2 games, established Snake as an experienced soldier. Solid Snake is the playable character of the extensive prologue sequence of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, in which he is sent by the anti-proliferation organization Philanthropy to infiltrate a cargo tanker and photograph Metal Gear RAY, the latest Metal Gear model. During the operation, however, the Metal Gear RAY is hijacked and the tanker destroyed, with the apparently-dead Snake framed for the deed. The remainder of Sons of Liberty follows the actions of the rookie FOXHOUND agent Raiden (the character now controlled by the player), who has been assigned to rescue the U.S. President and a number of other government officials being held hostage at a remote offshore oil shell facility. Solid Snake, who survived the explosion in the prologue, appears throughout the main portion of the game (initially adopting the pseudonym Iroquois Pliskin, again taken from the name of the character Snake Plissken from Escape from New York) as a non-playable character who assists Raiden. Kojima explained that his decision to introduce a new playable character in Solid Snake's place was done in order to develop Snake from another character's perspective, but also to avoid treating Snake as a rookie by having a new character be instructed via Codec instead. The PlayStation 3 game Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots features an aged Snake, once again the main protagonist and identified as Old Snake by the game. In this game, he is modeled after Lee Van Cleef, who appeared in Escape from New York (This redesign would make both Ocelot and Snake based on Van Cleef). Advanced cellular degeneration caused by a purposeful flaw in the cloning process used to create him has aged him prematurely. Snake is called Old Snake, which old is a dissolved word by removing the S'' and ''I from solid, leaving old. In the game, he wears a sneaking suit outfitted with "Octocamo" technology, which allows him to blend with his environment, as well as a face mask which alters his appearance (allowing the player to use his younger look during gameplay as well and disguise Snake as other characters). At the end of the game, Snake destroys the A.I.s of the Patriots, and, after meeting Big Boss once again, ultimately decides to live out the remainder of his life in peace. According to Ryan Payton of Konami, Guns of the Patriots will be the final canonical Metal Gear game to feature Solid Snake as the main character. Kojima himself has stated that the series will continue but he does not want the character to be handled by anyone else.